Conitive therapy - is it woo?

[hiyymer]

I was looking at a link which shows a list of cognitive therapists in Ireland (for a friend ) and seeings things offered alongside cognitive therapy in many of these centres like "Angel Healing" and "rebirthing" does not give me confidence.
http://www.holisto.com/holistic.php?sea ... %20Therapy

Anyone have or know anyone who has had experience with this? Is it woo or does it have a basis in reality?

When you start to understand that you aren't making rational choices, but the brain is reacting to situations based on past associations and emotional markers, then you see the problem is not to have the right logic but to modify the default reactions. For instance if you start to see that you have a feeling of panic every time a certain kind of situation arises, then just being able to consciously identify what is happening can have a big impact. Otherwise you are doomed to the same old pattern. So CBT makes sense to me, but I'm not sure how scientific it really is. Unless you are too far gone, you can do the same things yourself. Sometimes talk therapy can reveal the problem but not really deal with it. You could understand that you react in a certain way because of a traumatic situation in childhood, but that is not an automatic cure, unless you are going to deal with it by recognizing and modifying the reaction in the moment of it occurring. That's where behavioral therapy becomes more effective. It doesn't matter why you have the reaction if you can still recognize it and modify it.

[pErvinalia]

Yes - and sort of no. Definitely yes in how you've suggested it, with people thinking something about themselves over and over again basically cementing the belief into their brain, but I think it's important to point out that repetition isn't the only important factor. This was the problem with those "Tell yourself you're beautiful 20 times a day and you will feel beautiful!" self-help ideas from the late-90s onwards. They actually studied this and found that the self-esteem of the control group sky-rocketed, whereas the self-esteem of the depressed group (or whatever they were studying) actually plummeted. They suggested that this kind of repetition only worked when the person believed it already, and so when these "ugly people" (according to their own perceptions) were constantly telling themselves they were beautiful, they basically felt like they were lying to themselves and almost mocking themselves every day.

This is interesting to me ... I don't take personal compliments well because I don't like my own attention drawn to myself when it only serves as a reminder to me of how I feel about myself. I can't do the positive self talk thing, even at the best of times because I just don't believe it. The whole concept feels like a false charade,...

The important thing for me about CBT is whether it was rational or not. I have benefited greatly from CBT from a proper psychiatrist and a proper psychologist. Both of those people are as rational (if not more) than me. That was the most important thing. The techniques themselves are very rational in my opinion as well. For rationalists, it's not surprising that rationality is critical in the whole exercise. In between seeing the psychiatrist initially (he was just too cold hearted for my liking in the end), and the good psychologist, I saw a couple of flakes who were totally unconvincing in a rational sense. The difference in the help you get can be staggering.

[pErvinalia]

.. or compliments extracted under pain of obligation (the reverse form of manipulation, conscious or otherwise, I guess) ... which kinda ties loosely into my dislike of traditional celebratory obligations like mother's/father's day, for example.

God I love my fellow rationalists!! If it wasn't for you guys/gals, I would really believe I was some kind of total freak.

[pErvinalia]

There's some good replies here (and over at RatSkep), but just as a quick note: CBT (as opposed to cognitive therapy) is not "talk therapy", and it does not work through the mechanism of 'mind over matter'. CBT is essentially just behavioral therapy but due to the misunderstanding of behaviorism at the time, the psychologists didn't realise that thoughts and beliefs were behaviors too, so they added the "cognitive" label even though there is no difference between CBT and behavioral therapy. Behavioral therapy works by utilising the science of behavior - we've uncovered a number of behavioral laws and we have a decent understanding of how and why organisms behave in the ways they do, at the very least, we know more than enough to be able to manipulate behaviors and thoughts with great success (even if we generally use a Newton-like simplified bastardisation of the behavioral laws in therapies).

In a nutshell, there are universal laws which govern the behavior of living things, and thoughts and beliefs etc are behaviors too (they are "things that an organism does"). So to eliminate negative thinking, bad self esteem, and so on, all we have to do is apply the same principles we use to train dogs to jump through hoops, to the thoughts you're having. Extremely simply, this means identifying a problem, and rewarding yourself when you avoid engaging in this kind of problem thinking, and "punishing" yourself when you engage in this kind of thinking (not "punish" as in feel guilty, or self-flagellate, but in the technical sense of 'punish' which means 'to decrease the likelihood of the behavior occurring again in the future' using a variety of different tools).

Importantly, CBT not only has a massive amount of research supporting its overwhelming success, but it's also founded on a coherent framework of knowledge which, in itself, provides a sound foundation for the mechanisms proposed in CBT. Put another way, there is far more evidence to suggest that CBT is successful at reducing depression than there is to suggest that anti-depressants are successful at reducing depression (and of course CBT is applicable to other cognitive issues).

Worthless. Completely fucking worthless.

What the fuck are you talking about? CBT or Samsa's reply? Either way, you're wrong.

[.Morticia.]

It's talk in that people verbalise their mental experiences to a doctor and the doctor talks back to them. Talk is used in diagnosis and treatment True, talk is not the only criteria that a doctor uses to assess patients but it's a major one.

And which CBT, CBT is an umbrella term for a variety of treatments for different conditions.

[Mr.Samsa]

It's talk in that people verbalise their mental experiences to a doctor and the doctor talks back to them. Talk is used in diagnosis and treatment True, talk is not the only criteria that a doctor uses to assess patients but it's a major one.

It depends on what you mean by talk therapy; if it's used in the very broad sense where it's practically synonymous with "psychotherapy", then yes it's 'talk therapy', but talk therapy usually refers to the development of a relationship between therapist and client, and the general idea is that catharsis is achieved through simply talking about your problems and not "holding them in" any more. Obviously these aren't necessary in CBT, as no relationship with the therapist is required (beyond a basic willingness to follow their instructions), and the mechanism that causes the improvement in behavior or well-being is not the "talking" but rather it's the implementation of behavioral interventions.

And which CBT, CBT is an umbrella term for a variety of treatments for different conditions.

To some degree.. Often what is thought of as a form of CBT though is either a complete or partial rejection of the principles of CBT (e.g. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), or it is confused with CBT due to it operating according to the same fundamental principles, even though it is a completely separate field (e.g. applied behavior analysis, or systematic desensitisation).

[Animavore]

I got this book from the library (I'm so glad we can check out our own books now without having to go to the counter).

I'm not sure on it. It's written by a trained neurosurgeon. Has endorsements by Jonathan Naess and this guy...



And for further reading at the back she recommends people like Antonio Damasio and the Mood Gym already mentioned in this thread but at the same time I've two red flag issues. 1) She goes by the name of Dr. Liz Miller, so, using her argument from authority there and in the intro where she claims being through bi-polar disorder makes her qualified to write the book. And 2) an endorsement of Anthony Robbins a "devlopment guru" who does firewalking sessions. Sounds like a woo peddlar to me.
Advice?

[Animavore]

Oh and there's a foreward by Prof. Basant K. Puri MA, PhD, MB, BChir, BSc (Hons) MathSci, MRCPsych, DipStat, PG Cert Maths, MMath of Hammersfield hospital, London.

[.Morticia.]

I got this book from the library (I'm so glad we can check out our own books now without having to go to the counter).

I'm not sure on it. It's written by a trained neurosurgeon. Has endorsements by Jonathan Naess and this guy...



And for further reading at the back she recommends people like Antonio Damasio and the Mood Gym already mentioned in this thread but at the same time I've two red flag issues. 1) She goes by the name of Dr. Liz Miller, so, using her argument from authority there and in the intro where she claims being through bi-polar disorder makes her qualified to write the book. And 2) an endorsement of Anthony Robbins a "devlopment guru" who does firewalking sessions. Sounds like a woo peddlar to me.
Advice?

the warning is in the title

No legit therapist or doctor will tell you you can be happy by following their plan

legit mental health pros are there to help you be healthy